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From: jtk@mordor.ARPA (Jordan Kare)
Newsgroups: net.misc,net.bio
Subject: Re: World population benchmark
Message-ID: <11838@mordor.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 16-Jul-86 16:10:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: mordor.11838
Posted: Wed Jul 16 16:10:23 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Jul-86 02:16:50 EDT
References: <3553@hplabsb.UUCP> <599@bcsaic.UUCP> <1262@tektools.UUCP>
Reply-To: jtk@mordor.UUCP (Jordan Kare)
Distribution: net
Organization: S-1 Project, LLNL
Lines: 17
Keywords: Billions and billions, population, United Nations
Xref: watmath net.misc:9901 net.bio:610

In article <1262@tektools.UUCP> steves@tektools.UUCP (steve shellans) writes:
>>>According to the world population watchers at the United Nations, today
>>>(7 July) the 5 billionth person will be born.
>
>As I recall (dimly), [the population curve]
>appeared to be an exponential curve except for
>a sharp retrenchment at the time of the black death (~1400 ??).

The world population is rising faster than exponentially.  The 
"doubling time" is constant for an exponential, and decreasing for
population; I believe it is currently around 30 years.  The best fit
(in simple functions) to the population curve is an inverse function,
slightly more complicated than (but very similar to) 1/(t0 - t).
Note that this function goes to infinity at t = t0.  As I recall, 
t0 is sometime in the early 2100's....  (frighteningly, no more than
1/2 :-))
					Jordin Kare